Jeff Wall, now in his mid-fifties and based in Vancouver, is
considered to be one of the most important artists working with
photography today. Wall trained as an art historian and is often
described as a social observer whose project is the depiction
of modern life. For over 25 years he has been working on large-scale
back-lit colour photographs that depict staged scenes and are
presented in light boxes similar to those used in advertising.
However, Wall's subject matter differs greatly from advertisements.

While we typically think of photographs as representations of
reality and paintings as products of the artist's imagination,
Wall's images merge both possibilities. Although his works aspire
to the high art of painting, Wall is conscious of the fact that
in the technologically-oriented late twentieth century it is difficult
to treat the subject of modern life through painting. At the same
time, he dissociates his work from the photographic aesthetic
of spontaneity. In constructing his photographs he works like
a cinematographer, developing subjects, scouting locations, casting
actors, and setting up scenarios. He then photographs these scenarios,
and the resultant large-format colour images are informed by painterly,
cinematic, and photographic traditions.

Housekeeping is representative of a dramatic shift in
Wall's practice. With this big black-and-white photograph, he
has abandoned the light-box format. Housekeeping depicts
a hotel room in perfect order. The bed has just been made, the
carpet has been vacuumed, and the phone books are neatly stacked.
A woman dressed in a cleaner's uniform, her back to the viewer,
is leaving the room and pulling the door closed. This ordinary
image possesses all the spontaneity of a snapshot; it looks as
if Wall has simply reproduced what was in front of him.

Housekeeping was staged, but it lacks the deliberately
staged look of earlier works. It seems to reside in some new territory
defined more by documentary photography and the cinematic tradition.
While the moment portrayed in Housekeeping is easy to comprehend,
it is also strangely unfamiliar. Spectators are rarely privy to
such a scene - hotel room cleaners usually clean unoccupied rooms.
In this gesture, Wall's camera is less the documentarian's tool
and more the invisible eye of the cinematic moment. While the
choice of black-and-white film emphasizes Housekeeping's
documentary potential, it also points to contemporary art house
cinema and the emergence of the photographic medium.

Housekeeping is part of a larger series of photographs
picturing cleaners at work. In its depiction of a single cleaner
engaged in her job, Housekeeping, like the other photographs
in the series, makes visible the often ignored support staff that
sustain contemporary organizations. By choosing to picture the
endless cycle of labour managed by those inhabiting the margins
of society, Wall has revealed a modern subject.